Daniel P. Driscoll

So I had a ton of family members who had served.

And it was always kind of like on the back burner.

But I read this book as an 18-year-old and just thought, man, I cannot miss out on my generation's war.

Like, I do not want to be the kind of person that I'm 40, 50, 60 years old, and they ask the veterans to stand at an event and I stay seated.

Like, I need to go be a part of this.

If this is what our nation needs, I need to go be a part of it.

So I read the book.

finished it and just decided to graduate as fast as humanly possible.

So took a ton of summer school, got out in three years, and went to basic training.

What year was that?

Went to basic in September 2007.

Okay, so way past 9-11.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So it was right during the surge.

And so you were at basic training, and I did that, and then officer candidate school.

But everybody was talking about the surge in Iraq and trying to get you through schools.

The gaps between schools was nearly nothing because we just needed more soldiers.

We needed more second lieutenants.

So went through OCS, did a couple of other schools, ended up at tank school or armor school at Fort Knox.